Traitors
by Fierceawakening
Summary: Inspired by my noticing Starscream calling Skyfire a traitor. What might lead Starscream, the paragon of Decepticon treachery, to feel some other mech had committed some terrible sin by betraying the Decepticons? M for spark-sex. Not a happy fic.


"Traitor!" Starscream howled, speeding toward the large Autobot jet.

The other Decepticons would laugh to hear him say it, he was sure. Even his own trine would mock him, laughing and asking him just what his constant attempts to undermine Megatron made him.

They didn't understand. They had no idea.

The mission had been vorns ago. It hadn't even been important. Starscream had screeched and wailed when he'd been assigned to it in the first place. Who would want to babysit some ridiculous, sentimental civilian, anyway? But those had been his orders, and he'd gotten himself in a bit too much trouble a bit too recently to put up any serious protest.

So he and the giant fool, a big white mech designated "Skyfire," had taken off for some organic dirt-ball in a nearby galaxy. Ostensibly, he was there as Skyfire's protector, a bodyguard who would defend him against any hostile life forms they might find on the uncharted planet.

Oh, that explanation of his job was a pile of scrap. Skyfire was far larger than Starscream, and although the idiot barely knew how to use his own weaponry, he did come equipped with it. And it was proportional to his size. Starscream was hardly his protector. He knew why he was really there.

Tensions were mounting between the civilians and the military, and some brilliant mech who had the power to make decisions but no clue what was actually going on had thought that forcing mechs from the two groups to interact closely might help.

Skyfire, amiable and friendly, had seemed open enough to getting to know his "protector." Starscream, for his part, had quickly grown bored. While there were life forms on the organic planet, none were sentient, and there was only so long he could take watching the big scientist ooh and ahh over such fascinating discoveries as subtle differences between large, leafy plants.

Some of the world's fauna was hostile, and Starscream had staved off the worst of his boredom by goading particularly large specimens into attacking him and obliterating them. However, doing so provoked such whining from his companion - "You're altering the surface of the planet blasting at it like that, Starscream! We're here to study it, not destroy it!" "Starscream, you just deactivated one of the life forms we're here to study! And my analysis indicates that these creatures can feel pain!" - that Starscream soon found boredom preferable anyway.

All the same, boredom was impossible to live with for long. That left Starscream one option: seducing the dim-sparked fool he'd come here with, in the hopes that at least interfacing would provide some scrap of entertainment.

It hadn't been too terrible an idea. Skyfire had the same dull timidity of most of his kind, but his frame _was_ big, and that at least made being pinned under him exciting. And when the scientist wasn't fretting about Starscream's destructiveness or his violence or his impatience or Primus knew what else, he seemed honestly fascinated by the Seeker and the warrior culture he came from.

Winning him over had been more fun than Starscream had expected. Whispering into his overlarge audios just how it felt to soar through the skies in pursuit of an enemy, knowing that the slightest mistake might get you slagged. Telling him what it felt like to win, to stand over a fallen enemy, to know that the scratches and dents and holes in someone else's twisted metal came from you, yourself, and your own power.

The details had disgusted Skyfire, of course, but that was the fun part. It had been hilarious - and more than a little arousing - to watch the big flier shudder almost sensually, in the grip of some mix of disgust and envy.

"You want to be like us," Starscream had murmured, his high voice cracking in growing excitement as the other protested feebly, then kissed the smaller mech with all the passion he'd been so fervently denying.

The spark-merging had been the same: terribly dull until Starscream had wriggled enough beneath him, pretending the other was being as aggressive as he hoped for. Eventually, Skyfire's own disgust would boil over, the power and anger seething out of his whirling spark.

That was worth waiting for, at least on a pathetic little dirt planet with nothing to do. And Skyfire would hang on Starscream's stories for hours after that, his blue optics glinting with need.

Until, of course, he woke from his recharge sick with shame for what he'd done, and wandered off to catalogue fauna and make himself feel better. That was fine with Starscream. He much preferred Skyfire to avoid him, rather than berate him or whine at him for coddling.

It had gone on like that for the few weeks it had taken Skyfire to collect whatever pack of data his superiors wanted. They'd been heading back to Cybertron when the winds had caught them, sending both fliers spiraling out of control.

Starscream, of course, had immediately righted himself and flown off. He'd honestly thought Skyfire would be right behind him. As stupid as the lumbering idiot was, he'd been a better flier than the Seeker expected.

When he hadn't, Starscream hadn't been too worried. The civilians would, and did, take the loss as a blow to the relations they'd hoped to repair. But his own kind had simply accepted it all as proof the others were as stupid as they'd thought. It had been proof they deserved the disdain the warriors heaped on them. Besides, they'd said, everyone knew that civilian fliers were few in number precisely because they were embarrassingly bad at it anyway.

Starscream had, of course, been disciplined for the failure to protect his charge. But the officer he'd served under then had gone about it so half-sparkedly that the Seeker had almost been disappointed.

Hundreds of vorns later, when the tensions between the two cultures had long since become open war and Starscream had ascended all the way to his faction's second in command, he'd found Skyfire again, frozen in the ice of the same pathetic planet.

He hadn't planned to save the scientist, not at first. Skyfire might not know the name "Autobot" yet, or understand that war had broken out, but his kind were still the enemy. And Starscream knew firsthand just how dull not only Skyfire's kind but Skyfire specifically could be.

Still, opportunity like this rarely came along twice. Skyfire had always been sentimental and foolish. If Starscream convinced Megatron to spare him and train him, he'd no doubt latch onto the Seeker as his savior.

On top of that, Starscream had no doubt that even once his aggression had been nurtured, he'd despise Megatron on general principle. Which meant that for once Starscream might have a mech who was truly loyal to him and him alone. A mech who was truly desperate for his approval and attention, rather than simply interested in interfacing with him or pestering him or using him.

To that end, he'd told Megatron that he'd met this mech before. That their mission had been a disaster and the big mech himself hadn't been much better, but that he'd seen glimmers of something impressive when the big flier was adequately provoked. He'd mentioned Skyfire's odd fondness for him, suggesting that perhaps he could inflame the scientist's passion enough that he might prove useful to the Decepticons.

Megatron had refused at first, but his second had pressed the point so vehemently that Megatron had finally relented and agreed to let Starscream proceed with his little experiment.

As the Seeker had expected, Skyfire had been elated to discover that Starscream had rescued him. So elated that he'd swallowed the Seeker's flimsy explanation for abandoning him automatically. And of course, with the unfreezing of his systems had come a wild, eager heat in his spark. Megatron had smirked at that, red optics shining, and Starscream had hurriedly whisked his new pet off to take advantage of it.

"You belong to us now," Starscream had whispered, squirming under the big flier. "Your misgivings have no place here. They'll get you slagged if you're lucky." He'd bitten Skyfire's neck cabling, seductively at first, then hard enough to earn a startled yelp. "Tormented if you're not.

"But if you prove yourself," he'd whispered, watching with delight as the other's spark, already exposed, wheeled brightly in response to his words, "you might even _become_ one of us."

He'd opened his own chest plates, grinning as the other stared, sure he'd won already. But Skyfire's hands, reaching to press the smaller flier's wings into the floor beneath them, had suddenly frozen. "I'm sorry, Starscream. I can't -"

With a wild cry, Starscream had lifted his legs, kicked hard at the white mech above him, and rolled out from underneath him. The Seeker's chestplates had snapped shut with a ringing clang of anger as Starscream punched and kicked at Skyfire's wings, his cries of rage building to an audio-shattering shriek.

"Why you worthless, stupid, pathetic, worthless, idiotic, worthless - !"

Skyfire had dodged the smaller flier's blows awkwardly, nowhere near fast enough to avoid most of them. His optics burning with humiliation, he'd edged away, apparently intending to fly off.

"Come on, you dim-sparked, oversized heap of scrap metal!" the Seeker had howled, honestly indignant now. "_Fight back._"

He'd danced around the larger flier, still shrieking his litany of insults at maximum volume, punctuating them with blows to the sensitive surfaces of the larger mech's wings.

It had earned him nothing but harder blocks from Skyfire, who pushed Starscream's punches and kicks away hard enough to hurt, now. Well, that was something.

"You mean it," Skyfire had said finally, his pale mouth set in a hard line. "You mean the things you're calling me." He'd spoken slowly, as though each word was some kind of revelation. "Worthless. Scrap. Pathetic. That's what you think of me."

"Of course I mean it! I offered you the chance you know you wanted, and you repay me with this!" He'd gestured wildly, indicating Skyfire's wary stance, his raised fists... his unwillingness to use them.

"You never looked for me, did you? After I went down." The big flier's voice had grown suddenly cold, white fists creaking as they tightened. "You flew away, didn't you? You left me to die."

"Of course I did," the Seeker had spat back. "Don't you remember the stories I told you? We have no place for the unworthy. If you couldn't make it out of that storm yourself, you deserve your fate."

He'd smirked in triumph as the scientist roared, launching himself at Starscream, knocking the smaller flier back to the ground.

"Is this what you want, Starscream?" Skyfire had cried, the big fists crashing down onto any part of the Seeker they could hit. It had been terribly clumsy... but it had been something. Starscream had opened quickly to him, thrilling to the fierce energy that finally burst from his assailant's whirling spark.

_You want this too, _the Seeker had thought, knowing the other could sense his exultation. _You hate yourself for it, but you want this too._

_I couldn't care less what you think of yourself. Or of me, as long as you're mine._

He'd drawn his hands down the big flier's back, hard enough to leave obvious scratches in the white paint. Skyfire had screamed, a wail of pain and triumph and defeat, and his desperate overload had sent Starscream over the edge with him.

Skyfire had thrown himself into his training after that, though he'd sought it from anyone but his mentor at first. He'd felt Starscream's emotions during the merge, and so knew he hadn't violated the Seeker, but he blamed himself for it as if he had. Starscream suspected it was that, more than anything, that set his processor finally on earning the title of "Decepticon." As he saw it, he'd hurt someone he'd once cared about, and that made him horrible.

Which meant, in turn, that the Decepticons' ranks were the only place for him.

He'd proven a capable, if clumsy, fighter. His size and strength made up for his woeful lack of training, and his brutality during sparring had made even Megatron smirk with amused approval. Starscream had preened at that: _See, you pompous bastard? I've done it._

Then something had happened that even Starscream hadn't counted on. Skyfire had joined the Decepticons in battle against the Autobots, and everything had gone promptly to hell.

For all his cruelty in the sparring ring, Skyfire had balked at actually engaging the enemy. He'd hardly aimed at them at first, and when he finally had fired, every shot had still gone wide.

Worse still, when some of the Autobots' human allies had found themselves stranded in the middle of the battle, Skyfire had shielded them from harm. Seeing the other Decepticons glaring at him ever more suspiciously, he'd finally brought the humans in as prisoners. He'd made a great show of bringing a pair of shivering, "pathetic" Autobot sympathizers to "the grand and glorious" Megatron.

Starscream hadn't been fooled. Skyfire should have just slagged the little parasites, and both Skyfire and Starscream knew it. The scientist's fondness for unusual organisms had clouded his judgment.

And the sheer magnitude of his failure was making Starscream look bad.

Frantic to recoup anything he could, the Air Commander had decided to test the big idiot's loyalty once and for all. The Decepticons had managed to capture several Autobots, and Starscream had been ordered to finish the enemies off.

"Skyfire," he'd sneered. "Do you want to earn your badge and truly become one of us or not?"

"I do," Skyfire had answered automatically.

"Then terminate these vermin," the Seeker had ordered, satisfaction gleaming in his optics.

Skyfire had raised his blaster. He had snarled, growling angrily enough that Starscream had thought that maybe he'd finally gotten through to the dim-sparked fool once and for all.

But he'd lowered his arm a moment later, turning to Starscream and spouting some vapid nonsense about the value of life and how, even after Starscream had changed him, he could not kill another sentient being.

And just like that, everything Starscream had done, from his wheedling Megatron to give Skyfire to him in the first place to the hours he'd spent carefully seducing the fool, had come unraveled. The mech he'd protected, groomed, set on the path to glory, had betrayed him.

It was unthinkable.

Oh, he didn't give a damn that Skyfire didn't like him. He might not even have cared if Skyfire disobeyed, if less had been at stake. He himself had defied or even openly betrayed Megatron so often that no Decepticon could clearly remember how many times he'd done it.

But that was about Megatron. About Megatron's leadership. About whether Megatron deserved it. Which he clearly wouldn't, if his second could ever truly best him. That wasn't about what it meant to be a warrior.

That wasn't about what it meant to be a Decepticon.

He'd offered Skyfire a life of conquest, of glory, of pleasures far richer than he'd ever experience spending weeks cataloguing worthless organisms like Earth trees.

Yes, Starscream had had his own reasons for grooming Skyfire. Yes, it had been as much about the Seeker's own amusement and advancement as it had been about truly making a warrior of the big white mech. Still, it was an honor few Decepticons would ever offer anyone not of their kind.

Starscream had offered Skyfire the chance to exalt himself, to mold himself through fire and pain into more than he ever would be otherwise.

In doing so, the Seeker had broken the first commandment of his kind. He had offered Skyfire more than he deserved.

Skyfire should have understood. He should have known what he'd been given. Misgivings or no, he should have proven himself worthy of such an extraordinary gift.

Instead, he had thrown it right back in the Seeker's faceplates.

For that, the newly-minted Autobot would pay, and pay dearly.

Wheeling around again, Starscream accelerated. Firing his null rays, he launched himself at his enemy. Crying out again, he cursed Skyfire for the traitor he was, not caring who heard his cries.

Or whether or not they understood.


End file.
